Location:Terminal City
An Exalted: End of an Age location.
Terminal City is a big place. One can get lost in its concrete jungle, from the docklands and downtown in the east to the vast urban wastelands to the west. It's big, bold and in-your-face - half Detroit, half Chicago, and half Las Vegas, but rotten in the core, like everywhere in the World of Darkness. Its current official population is 13 million - no-one has ever conducted a survey of the various supernaturals that wander its nights, but it should be a good few thousand.
It's also a place in decline - heavy industry is failing here, and in the wake of demolished factories, the city struggles to reinvent itself. Here, our small group of Exalted unexpectedly gather together and begin the journey of a lifetime.
Boroughs and Areas[edit]
Terminal City's centre is aptly known as Midtown, a vast downtown area home to nightclubs, shopping malls, and the headquarters of big business. The Technocracy's Syndicate has an iron-hard grip on this area, and underneath the Alfred F. Jones Building at the very centre of town lies their local headquarters, a vast underground labyrinth of corridors and tunnels, incomprehensible to all but the Technocracy themselves. However, they still squabble with the Vampires in town, whose influence is beginning to extend to the inner city neighborhoods in the east.
West of the Loop is Old Town, a mass of old buildings on high hills, close to the river, and right next to the biggest park in the city, Greenville Park. It's overgrown, too big for the city to afford to clean it up, and human predators and worse lurk within. Some claim that in the park they can hear the howling of wolves, escaped from the nearby zoo. Others say that this is just an urban legend, but fewer and fewer people are coming out at night in the neighborhoods by the park, and of those that do, few are coming out again.
Even further west, is Bethlehem Cathedral, a towering Neo-Gothic edifice of black stone, looming over the inner city neighborhood where it is built. The former pastor is currently in an insane asylum, claiming that 'something Godless' lurks beneath the Church's catacombs.
Even further west, by the coast, is the Docklands, a major shipping hub before Terminal City began its decline. It's now in an advanced state of decay, and graffiti and litter lies everywhere where there was once thriving industry.
Looking east, is The Belt, a line of glitz and glamour that exists solely to provide entertainment. Cinemas, nightclubs, everywhere, a pit of vice in every form. It's a part of the city that has survived decay, and is steadily inching along to survive.
Further east, is The Line, a series of residential neighbourhoods and industrial parks, steadily but slowly decaying into obsolescence, an urban wasteland slowly sliding into decay. Its size is abetted by the decaying nature of many of the houses and apartments within, and the misery of many within.
Even further east, about 3 miles out, lies Parkville, a pit of crime and gangs. The vampires of Terminal are trying to take over here, but there's one place they avoid - a neighbourhood guarded by a protector who shines with the light of the sun itself.
4 miles out, lie the suburbs, home to a big slice of middle-class Americana. It's decent there, at least in terms of crime, but pretty much every official (as in most of Terminal City) is corrupt and self-serving to the core.
The Underground is...big. A series of sewers, underground catacombs, and abandoned subway stations cut off from the grid, parts of it haven't seen the sun in decades, and it's positively crawling with vampires, mostly Nosferatu.
The Crawling Darkness: Supernaturals in Terminal City[edit]
Terminal City is crawling with Vampires, about 500 in all, although some estimates go up to 700. There are few Garou here, in such a place of order and Wyrm-taint alike, but a few Glass Walkers in the inner city and Bone Gnawers in the poor neighbourhoods. There's a few Mages, mostly Virtual Adepts and Sons of Ether, but a couple of the Cult of Ecstasy and the Celestial Chorus dwell here. As for Hunters, there's a small group over in Parkville that aren't taken very seriously by the other supernaturals, and other small groups scattered throughout the city.
